To their credit, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association managed to restrain themselves from moving their vote forward like the New York Film Critics Circle. Thus they had an extra dozen days to catch up on films such as Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” which did not, however, turn up on their list of award winners to be celebrated at their annual January ceremony.

While the AFI film jury went mainstream with their top ten picks this year, the LA Film Critics went indie. They picked South Korean actress Yun Jung-Hee (“Poetry”) as Best Actress for her performance as a woman facing Alzheimer’s. Fox Searchlight had a good day, as Best Picture went to Alexander Payne’s family drama “The Descendants,” Best Director went to Terrence Malick for “The Tree of Life,” cinematography went to that film’s Emmanuel Lubezki, and the specialty distributor could also claim partial credit for Best Actor Michael Fassbender for his multiple roles including “Shame,” and Jessica Chastain as Supporting Actress for her many 2011 films, including “The Tree of Life.” Christopher Plummer continued his winning streak as best supporting actor for his role as an ailing older gay man in Focus Features’ “Beginners.”